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Friday, August 09, 2013

Salt and pepper are so bizarrely cheap at the mega-box-store. I do not know how any body in the supply chain of these two essential goods can be making any money with this shit.

These two commodities used to be the backbone of various economies throughout history, but I suspect that much of our salt & pepper lore originates with the Roman Empire, because of our "Western" society's cultural history as a Christian Secularism.

Famously, we are told repeatedly, that salt was used to pay Roman soldiers and that is where we get the word "salary". I suspect that Roman soldiers accepted salt for payment, where it was more plentiful than the gold reserves and more valuable at home .

I believe that I read about peppercorns being "worth their weight in gold" in a Lindsey Davis Falco mystery. Marcus Didius Falco, private informer at-large and occasional Imperial agent to Augustus. Great detective series; well-researched.

I pay two bucks for an amount of salt and pepper that would have bought me a fleet of camels, once.

I'm on a budget. I'm standing in megaboxstore thinking about Roman Centurions. I've been watching the first three seasons of BattleStar Galactica again, but without salt, for days. I put the salt and pepper in my cart.

I buy the unbrand store brand butter, the unbrand store brand rice, the unbrand store brand onion soup, the unbrand store brand chicken wieners and the unbrand store brand salt and pepper. I buy branded non-clumping cat litter and cat food, but they are the cheapest available. I buy non-clumping because it is cheaper than clumping. Have I made a grave tactical error? I am sitting at home, writing this and thinking that "I know nothing about non-clumping kitty litter". I also pay for premium brown sugar; No state-issued saccharine tablets for this Smith, not today.

{The orange cat wants to check her email, Eric.}

I have ingested a few chicken wieners, by now. I think that i have done so, correctly. So far, so good, eh? While standing in the cooler aisle, contemplating the dairy and meat selection, I was struck by the fear. "Why are the chicken wieners just one third the cost of the beef wieners?" Is it because "they" skin, bone and wash the cows before sticking them in the grinders?

I am broke. I have two wilted beets that I slice over my braised chicken wiener chunks. I pour unbranded store brand long-grain white rice over my beets and wieners, then add unflavoured water.

I put one of the chicken wieners into the microwave and set it for 55 seconds on a 100% power and forgot about it. As I opened the microwave, I observed that the chicken wiener no longer looked like a consistently-extruded cylinder. It had buckled, shrunk unevenly and had a zombie pallor. But was hot. Eating it felt like a mistake right away, but I was hungry. Certainly, there is allotta water in a chicken wiener. The real question, of course: How much of what's left is chicken meat? Where is it from? No, wait. Where did the salt come from?

Wwwwhhhoooooaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I bought "salt and pepper". Why is there 5 ingredients listed on the package? Iodine additive ok. Sodium thiosulphate and calcium silcate (superfine sand)? And it's packed and prepared in Canada", meaning that it could be coming from anywhere, under any conditions.

What is Sodium Thiosulphate? It could be nitre-scrapings from Chinese-village public latrines, collected by hereditary clans, but endangered by new-money party-members building terracotta public urinals allover Shanghai and Beijing. But it's not. It's a sulphur byproduct of dye manufacture. I am going to buy the expensive surrender-monkey sea-salt as soon as I can afford it.

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Upcoming stuff

I will be closing my art show at From the Grind Up cafe, in Fort Frances August 23, with the assistance of Buddy-Z. as we do our thing in front of a different audience, recording the next #ZzorhnAndBingoRage show. If anyone shows up. I have also obligated myself to another #ELE420 show and a wizard battle, soon.

The "Sturgeon Mama" sculptural model was destroyed and stolen from outside of #StudioChezZzorhn a couple weeks ago, where it had been on display for a few months. Large portions of the foam and clay model were recovered, however, and will be repurposed into new works.

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Why so mad

Bingo-Rage was an inside joke between my Mum and I. She was a diehard, loyal bingo player who passed away a few years ago. Her jones wasn`t the multimillion dollar jackpots bleeding Las Vegas dry, it was the insatiable $50 inside square and the lascivious, yet demure thousand dollar jackpot.

I could always tell when she had missed a big pot; holding onto a card that only needed two more numbers, when the ballcount was only at 36. Or, some such compelling position. She then watched twenty-two balls dance by, sometimes right next door; but fail to light on her stoop. She was steamed.